


Tear

by Kenjiandco



Series: Cumulative Injury Cycle [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Spoilers, Yes I know no one ships it but me, and more importantly neither do they, platonic/romantic/I don't even know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenjiandco/pseuds/Kenjiandco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The capture of the Armored Titan should have been one of the greatest victories in the history of the Scouting Legion...<br/>They'd found it hard to celebrate a victory, after chaining a half-dead child to a wall.</p><p>This work is a sequel to RIP, part 1 of the Cumulative Injury Cycle series</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tear

**Author's Note:**

> THE SETUP: This alternate timeline diverges from canon in ch. 47: Bertl and Reiner, realizing the legion was bound to catch up to them, managed to convince Ymir not to go back for Christa. As a result, they made it all the way to the Wall before the Legion caught them. Ymir snatched Christa, and Reiner pulled a last stand to delay the Legion, letting Bertholdt and Ymir get over the wall with Eren.

**CUMULATIVE INJURY CYCLE (medical term):**

_A condition arising from the repetition of activities which cause mild injuries, usually overlooked as insignificant.  The Cumulative Injury Cycle causes repeating trauma, re-opening old wounds before they can heal._

_If left unchecked, the Cumulative Injury Cycle will eventually become completely debilitating._

 

It took Hanji a few days to reach the old, castle-like abandoned building, her injuries forcing her to travel infuriatingly slowly.  The rumors changed by the hour as news of the battle at the base of the Wall spread.   _They caught the Armored Titan, they killed the Armored Titan, Eren Yeagar is missing, the commander is crippled, the commander is_ dead...all she could do was ride as fast as her body could stand, and trust the tiny pigeon-message, carrying Irvin’s name (but not in his handwriting) that said, simply, _We’ve got one.  Get here._

It was nearly sundown by the time she passed the dried-up well and the patch of dead grass left by an accidental transformation, and Hanji bit her lip hard, forcing down the memories.  She didn’t have to bother with steering anymore: her horse knew how to get to his stable from here, and he wanted a drink.  She just stared down at the ground past his ears and tried not to wonder who _else_ hadn’t come back.

Irvin met her walking up the path to the main gate.   _Watching from a window, weren’t you?_ she thought, waving stiffly.  Then she got close enough to see his face, and any relief at seeing him alive and upright vanished.  He was too pale, dark hollows under his eyes and the lines on his face seemed to have deepened since she last saw him.  He looked older, hurt, and far, _far_ too tired.  And something about the way he carried himself was...off...he walked like he had to think about it, off-balance with every step.  Hanji’s stomach dropped as she realized what his cloak was hiding.

It must have shown on her face, because Irvin rolled his eyes as soon as they were within speaking distance.  “If you can come up with a variation of _idiot_ Levi hasn’t already called me I will be _astounded.”_

“It’s _true?”_ Hanji closed the distance at a run.  “Oh Irvin...I...I didn’t know what rumors to believe…”

“ _Tell_ me about it.  We’ve had to send out messengers to tell everyone I’m not dead.”  He sounded casual, but she could hear the barely-suppressed pain in his voice as he rubbed his hand over the bandaged stump of his right arm.  “Listen, Hanji, we’ve got a problem here--”

“You’re God damn right we do, has this been disinfected?  Any inflammation?”  She pulled him around to face her and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.  “How do you feel?”

“ _Lopsided,_ can we talk about me later?   _I’m_ not the problem…”  He turned aside at the main doors of the old building and started up the stairs that lead up to the attics and the roof.  

“Problem?”  Hanji suddenly remembered _why_ she was there, and a spark of her old giddy excitement returned.  “Right!  You’ve got one of the shifters!”

Irvin sighed heavily.  “Yes and no...we’ve got him in custody, but…”  They turned a switchback onto another flight of stairs, and he stopped and pointed down across the courtyard.  “They won’t let us get near him.”  

“Huh?” Hanji followed his finger down to the the little tableau at the base of the wall, in front of the stairs leading down to the old dungeons.  She squinted, leaning over the stair rail to get a better look. “Those...that’s the 104th, isn’t it?  What are they doing?”

“Competing to set a record for number of assaults on officers, apparently.”

“You don’t say…” Hanji grinned.  “Who’s winning?”

“I’d call it a tie between Kirstein and Sasha Blause.  Kirstein’s up to nine…” Irvin awkwardly propped his elbow on the rail, running a hand over his face.  “...and Blause has one, but it was Levi.”  

“It...she... _wow.”_ Hanji straightened up and shoved her bangs back behind her ears, momentarily lost for words.  “Too bad.  I liked her.”  

“Oh, she’s fine.  Honestly, I think he was impressed.”  Irvin stretched, and started back up the stairs.  “He’s up on the roof, keeping an eye on them.”

“They’re...guarding him?  The shifter?  Which one is it?”

“Second rank...Reiner Braun.  The armored titan…”  

 _Reiner Braun..._ Hanji had to stop and think, trying to conjure up a face to go with the name.  Tall, bright eyes...looked too old to be a trainee and the rest of the squad tended to cluster around him like ducklings when things got bad... _oh._

“Eren?”

Irvin shook his head, muscles in his jaw standing out as he ground his teeth together.  “They got clear...the other one, Hoover, he made it over the wall while the Armored Titan blocked us off.”  Hanji trailed after him as he stepped over the rail and walked across the edge of the roof, to the figure sitting with his back to a chimney.  

Levi glanced up at them through his bangs as they approached.   “Still alive, four-eyes?  Took you long enough to get here.”  His lower lip was split and swollen, and Hanji swallowed a laugh.

“At least I didn’t get punched out by a fifteen-year-old,” she replied cheerfully, taking a seat beside him.  Levi shot Irvin a filthy look.  

“Anything change?”  Irvin asked.  He leaned against the chimney stack, sweat beading at his temples from the climb.  Levi shook his head, swinging his broken ankle aimlessly over the roof’s edge.  

“They’re still taking turns sleeping...looks like they broke into the food stores again too.  Everyone’s basically steering clear now.”  

All three fell silent, staring down at the little makeshift camp barricading the stairs.  “Still,” Hanji said eventually, “you caught one of the traitors, that’s one _hell_ of a victory.  Gotta get you some credit, even after the fifty-seventh mission.”

“It’s hard to celebrate a victory after you get through shackling a half-dead child to a wall,” Irvin said flatly.  

“You were going to ask him to die for you anyway, weren’t you?” Hanji asked softly.  Irvin’s eyes snapped up to meet hers.  

“Those kids down there are committing treason, _Squad Leader,”_ Irvin growled.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Levi raise an eyebrow; he appeared to be observing with interest.

“This is the squad that came out of Trost together, isn’t it?  How many have they seen die in, what, a few _months?_ They’re scared you’re going to kill another one of their own.”

“You’re saying they don’t trust me.”

Levi snorted loudly, still staring out over the courtyard.  “‘Course they don’t fucking trust you, who’re you to those kids? You’re the bastard who threw an army of Titans at them.  If you’d bothered to talk to anyone _else_ in the Legion you would have seen this coming.”

Hanji kept her eyes on the commander, watching the anger slowly drain out of his face as Levi’s cool voice continued.  “Braun saved most of their lives when the female titan hit the right flank, or in Trost.  And where the hell were _you?”_

“Y’know…” Hanji paused to let the thoughts line up in her head.  “If their aim really _is_ the extermination of humanity...it should have been in his benefit to let them all die.  Eight of the top ten graduates in the Legion, even if two of them were traitors...that’s still a threat.  And he _protected_ them…what’s that tell you?  ‘Cause it tells me the 104th know something we don’t.”

“It’s almost like they’re willing to bet everything that some wild fucking animal still wants to be saved.”  Levi’s voice was flat, expressionless, barely more than a whisper.

Irvin went silent for a long, long time, staring down at his captain, who never once moved to look at him.  Then his composure broke and he collapsed back against the chimney behind him, sliding down it ‘til he could lean his head against his knees.  

“What do I do, Hanji?” he whispered.

Hanji considered.  “I’m going to need some specialized equipment.”  Irvin waved a hand without looking up.

“Whatever you need.”

“O-kay...get me...um...six good thick blankets, some pillows, like three dozen donuts and a pot of coffee.”

“You’re bringing them _coffee?”_

“Nope.”  She hopped over the rail, back onto the stairs.  “ _You_ are.”

 

* * *

_He couldn’t feel his arm...weird, that didn’t usually happen, must have slept on it funny...head spinning, felt like he was floating bobbing up and down and dropping out of the world and the pain hit like a cannon shell._

_He’d had to re-learn pain (the pain of injuries, pain in the mind and the soul they’d never be without) but not like this slamming through him he opened his eyes long enough for the light to set them on fire and gone again into the hot blackness._

_But memories returned at the strangest times, the last thoughts through his mind before he blacked out again, someone’s arms around him, dragging him back from the edge…_

_…a kiss..._

Reiner woke slowly, and managed to keep his eyes open on the third try.  It took a long time for his eyes to focus, resolving shapes out of the yellowish blur in front of him...stone walls…bars

...freezing cold…

tired too heavy to move

\-- _can’t_ move--

Mind clawing its way free of the fog, Reiner twisted his head awkwardly to the right, something had his numb arm pinned, metal rattled as he tried to free it, scraping and his wrist--

It was a manacle he was chained down, chained to a wall _what the fuck?_ The surge of panicked adrenaline was enough to jolt him upright, wrenching his arm against the cuff that kept his right arm twisted back above his head.  Nothing gave, it just sliced deeper into his skin sending fresh streams of blood running over the scabs.   _I’m not healing (of course not those injuries are only a few days old why would they heal) they should heal if you were a warrior you wouldn’t be hurt_ his head fell back against the wall, pain stabbing through his temples as his thoughts twisted in on themselves _what’s happening to me?_

Something shifted on the other side of the small room, making a faint rustling and a sound almost like a sigh.  He latched onto it, something to focus on outside the tangled hell of his own mind, turning as far as the short chain would let him...and froze…

Connie shifted in his sleep again, eyelids fluttering.  He’d wedged himself into the corner between the walls and the barred doors, knees pulled up to his chest and shivering slightly in the frigid basement air.  The yellow light of the oil lamps outside the door cast harsh shadows, making his face look older and sharper and ( _handsome)_ worn down.  

Reiner knew he he hadn’t been sleeping, not since the disaster at Ragako, he only ate when Sasha begged and prodded and threatened him into it, losing weight he didn’t have to spare and it was starting to show, that was _bad_ especially when he was hurt, bandaged hands and arms and the skin around the edges of the bandages shiny with…

...burns…

Another painful wrench in his memory steam at the top of the Wall teeth tearing his body apart and the awful sucking endless desperation, the oblivion he longed for so close he could taste it before it was pulled away yet again _why won’t any of you just let me_ die--!

 _It was you..._ coherent memories were few and far between, beneath the haze of fear and agony, but... _someone pulled me back (who would pull_ you _back from the edge, killer, traitor, murderer no one’s coming for you, not for_ you _) someone had to pull me back I wouldn’t have stopped myself, I’m too weak to want to live (you don’t deserve to be saved) someone_ saved _me (who would save_ you) he _would._

Connie would...slow to learn and that included learning not to _care._

“Reiner?”  The soft voice was enough to make him start, hard, hissing as the manacle rasped against his already torn skin.

“Oh my _God_ you’re awake.”  Connie scrambled across the tiny room to crouch at his side.  “We were starting to...to wonder if...for awhile there it looked like you weren’t gonna…” his voice caught and he broke off, swallowing hard.  

“How-- _gh--”_ Reiner’s voice stuck and tore in his dry throat, coughs shaking his entire frame.  Connie wordlessly handed him a water bottle.

“About three days is how long, if that’s what you were gonna ask.  You just...switched off.  Like blowing out a candle.  Captain Levi, when he caught up to us, he said...he took one look at you and said no point in keeping you chained up, ‘he’s dead, he just hasn’t bothered to stop breathing yet.'" Connie mimicked the Legion captain's deadpan voice. “That’s when Sasha punched him.”

“He’s not wrong.”  Reiner’s voice sounded strange in his own ears, harsh and rasping.  He took another drink from the bottle and swallowed with an effort, sagging back into the wall and letting the chain on his wrist take his weight.  “I’m so tired…”

“I know you are...your injuries never healed...some of the cuts bled for days.”  Connie reached out, hesitantly, and the tips of his fingers brushed across Reiner’s cheek, catching on the bloody tears under his eyes where the nerves had ripped free.  Reiner shivered.

“Why aren’t you healing?” Connie whispered.

“I don’t...I don’t know--” Reiner broke off mid sentence as his brain caught up with his ears. “Did you say Sasha punched out _Levi?”_

Connie smiled crookedly. “You had to see it to believe it. The look on his _face…”_ He let out a short breath, almost a laugh...and just for that second he looked like himself again, the kid who used to steal leftovers from the mess hall and go looking for anyone who hadn’t shown up for dinner, who’d gone into a panic at the thought of a friend getting a fever…bet his own life that a mass murderer wouldn’t kill him...and…

...and...

“Did you _actually_ kiss me?” the words were out before he had a chance to think about it.  “I-I’m not sure...I don’t know what’s real anymore, and what’s…”

“No, that part was real.  Um.”  Connie shifted to lean his back against the cold wall, pulling his knees up to his chest, shadows settling on his face again.  “Sorry?”

He looked down to see Connie watching him, he looked uncertain but there was something else, an emotion he couldn’t place behind his wide eyes.  The silence stretched between them, wind hissing across the doorway above suddenly loud in the stillness.  Connie shivered hard.  

“You’re cold?”

Connie nodded, rubbing his arms.  “It’s kind of fucking freezing down here.”  He glanced up again.  “Unless you’ve got a built in furnace.”  

Reiner wrapped his free arm around Connie’s shoulders and pulled him in against his chest.  Connie went stiff with surprise, just for a second and then he all but melted, leaning into Reiner’s hold.  

Reiner released a shaky sigh and closed his eyes, free arm lying over his old friend’s waist.  Force down the pain and he could almost pretend...it could have been any night of the last few years, the few _good_ years before everything was torn apart, just sore from training, wrenched his back when Eren threw him.. _.Eren and Jean yelling at each other about something, Bertl’s laughter and Connie fell asleep on his shoulder again, sitting on the edge of the porch behind the mess hall, he’d have to wake him up when the bells rang but for now just let him sleep no no_ no--

“ _Shit,”_ Reiner hissed, pain stabbed behind his eyes the two halves of his mind cracking together and he pressed a hand to his face, tears cutting streaks through the blood.  

Connie’s arms slid around his neck, pressing his face into Reiner’s too-hot skin and Reiner’s hold on him tightened reflexively, trembling as he fought against the tears.

“Why’d you do it?” he whispered, voice choked, and Connie’s arms tightened around him.  “Why’d you...you _kissed_ me…”

Connie shrugged helplessly.  “I had to do something and it didn’t _work! Look_ at you...you’re not healing because you don’t _want_ to heal, do you?”  His fingers dug into Reiner’s shoulders, he practically spat the words between his teeth.  “Nothing else was getting through to you...I-it...it was the best way I could think of to say _I don’t want you to die.”_

“Is that all it was?”  

Connie’s eyes widened, something hot and hard edged lighting up behind them.  He took a shaky breath, staring up into Reiner’s face.  The heavy, complicated silence closed in again.  He felt almost paralyzed by the unfamiliar emotions, the feeling of _wanting_ something...something beyond an end to everything.   _Never gonna have this chance again..._ Reiner slid his hand to the back of Connie’s neck and pulled him forward, Connie shut his eyes…

It felt a little like a fever breaking.  The desperate pain was still there, broken edges just beneath the surface,  but some of the ragged loneliness leached away in the contact between them.  

By the time they gasped back to reality, Reiner had fallen back against the wall, chained arm twisted behind him.  He’d pulled Connie with him, lying half across his lap, their legs tangled together.  And surrounded by a cloud of steam…

Connie sucked in a few deep breaths, cheeks flushed despite the biting chill.  After a moment his eyes refocused, and then he practically launched himself back, looking Reiner up and down with wide eyes.

“ _Holy shit I’m magic!”_

Reiner shifted and straightened his arm, in time to see the last of his blood steaming off new, healed skin.  

“You’re healing, oh my _God_ you’re healing!”  Connie grabbed his shoulders, his smile lighting him up from the inside.  “Man, I thought you were just _broken_ for awhile there...ohshit you aren’t gonna transform on me are you?”

Reiner let his head droop forward ‘til their foreheads touched, hand on Connie’s neck again.  He shook his head, exhaustion clouding around him as the adrenaline drained out of his system.  

“I still don’t know why,” he whispered.  “After everything I’ve done...why’re you still here?”

“‘Cause I’m an idiot.”  Connie shrugged.  “‘I’m no good at strategies and theories and planning ahead...I have to see it to believe it.  We all decided...we wouldn’t believe you were really our enemies ‘til we saw it for ourselves…hey…” he should Reiner’s shoulders as his eyes started to flutter shut.  “You aren’t passing out on me again, are you?”

“‘M tired...sleepy.”  He let go of Connie and leaned back against the stone again.  

Connie settled next to him and leaned into his side, resting his head against his chest. “Me too.”

 Reiner took another shaky breath.  “Hey.  I know it’s cold down here but...s-stay with me? At least ‘til I’m asleep?”

Connie’s slim fingers laced through his and squeezed gently, old blade scars rasping against his skin.  “Good luck getting rid of me.  Dumbass.”  The soft, cool brush of lips against his cheek was the last thing he was aware of before sleep closed in again.

 

* * *

“Now _this_ I was not expecting,” Irvin said, as Hanji re-filled the oil lamps, which had burned down to the faintest of flickers.  He glanced over at her, eyes unreadable in the gloom at the bottom of the stairwell, now that the sun had set.  “What do you recommend?”

“Let ‘em sleep.”  Hanji came to stand beside him, leaning against the wall again to ease the strain of balancing against his missing arm.  She glanced over her shoulder, up to the makeshift camp at the entrance to the cellars.  “They all need it.”  

The 104th had relented to Hanji’s presence in the end, granting her the benefit of the doubt because they knew she had fought for Eren’s safety in the days after the battle at Trost.  The coffee probably hadn’t hurt either.

“He really is human,”  Irvin said eventually, looking through the barred door at the two boys, asleep in each other’s arms. “Just another kid caught in the middle of a war.  God…”

“It’s easier when they’re just monsters, isn’t it?”  Hanji said, watching the commander’s face in the guttering lamplight.  “At least we know how to kill monsters.”

“If he’s a monster, what am I…” Irvin whispered, curling his remaining hand around his shoulder.  Hanji shrugged.

“I imagine we’ll all be remembered as killers, in the end.”

Connie Springer shifted, and whispered something faintly in his sleep, shivering.  Irvin straightened up wordlessly and eased the door open, broken padlock clattering.  “Go back upstairs, Squad Leader,” he said, the note of command back in his voice despite the softness.  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Hanji met his eyes for a long moment, and then saluted.  “I trust your orders, Commander.”

She climbed the stairs and found a seat on the ground next to Levi, near the fire the rookies had burning.  True to his word, Irvin followed her out a few minutes later, nodding to the soldiers around the fire before he headed off into the night.

Hanji noted, with some satisfaction, that he was no longer wearing his Legion cloak.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who waited a month and a half for this thing. Part 3 turned out to be a killer.  
> Tear marks the end of the Cumulative Injury Cycle, I hope you all enjoyed it!
> 
> If you're waiting for the next chapter of Strings, I promise you with this complete, Jean and Marco own my soul for the foreseeable future.


End file.
